Esmeraldas
by Cacaoyere
Impact
Esmeraldas from Cumba... kinda rhymes with Hezbollah singing Kumbaya – that Afric-American hit from the Gullah people. To the break, mujahadeen: ‘someone’s laughin’, Allah, come by here’.
Easy, mon... or this bar terrorizes laughter into tears. (Shhh, just baiting the jihadis.)
Now someone’s cryin’, Lord (ha ha ha), Kumbaya... someone’s prayinnnnnnn’ Kumbanana... he he he he... Kumbabaghanoush (this choc will wobble ‘em out).
‘What? You got a problem singing? Huh? Bite this, Imam.’
Easy, mon... or this bar terrorizes laughter into tears. (Shhh, just baiting the jihadis.)
Now someone’s cryin’, Lord (ha ha ha), Kumbaya... someone’s prayinnnnnnn’ Kumbanana... he he he he... Kumbabaghanoush (this choc will wobble ‘em out).
‘What? You got a problem singing? Huh? Bite this, Imam.’
Appearance 4.5 / 5
| Color: | dark for an Esmer: deep magenta |
| Surface: | minor scuff & chips, otherwise clean; swales all over the back |
| Temper: | refracted |
| Snap: | well-pitched, pehaps a little Beta high in the butter; sandstone edge |
Aroma 8 / 10
dusted & malted: red banana shoots thru mold, must, cardboard, & cocoa dust -> African palm -> late light spice (cumin / nutmeg) + ocean ions carrying salt -> aerates rice, cotton, & yucca -> slows & turns to age so well for florals & supple Milk Choc
Mouthfeel 12.1 / 15
| Texture: | mealy boob pack |
| Melt: | discombobulates |
Flavor 47.3 / 50
immediate & instantaneous: beautifully spiced chocolate (nutmeg, cardamom, coriander, & spinenard) -> taps into loam for more earthen cocoa-chestnut -> white pepper & a sharper form of nutmeg in straight mace for a root beer float w/ chocolate coconut-cream foam head -> Milk Choc -> breadnut -> cherimoya & curuba -> red banana -> pepino & papaya -> small woods in the clearing evoking sandalwood, soothed over by forest honey
Quality 19.2 / 20
Who made this? Did Cacaoyere really make this? Or is it all on the lovely Esmeraldas? Nah, just embarrasses RdelC’s Esmeraldas so more must be involved.
Sounds so Post-Irony but the more these in-country plays pump out the product where everything is done at the source from the places cacáo grows, stripped of all Euro refinements, the more those old skool classic bars appeal to the senses hungering for vanilla, sugar, lecithin, blended formulas & a real conche job that delivers core chocolate flavor.
Yet this does that without all the theatrical make-up kit, thanks to the cultivar (pick of the crop) & the cult of chocolate craft (minimalist approach gleaned thru the Textural composition).
Classic, on-point for the varietal and the origin, & yet one more reason, as if needed, why Esmeraldas is the best contemporary Ecuador - a true thoroughbred.
The high level constancy of it all is unreal... as in surreal –- full-throttle from start to finish –- no let-up or flagging flavors whatsoever. A balanced CBS (Cocoa Mass/Butter/Sugar ratio): ~4:5:4 goes a long way in achieving such, to rival Caoni’s 77% from the same spot. Check that, surpasses it.
Distibutor Bill Seal of GreatWilderness.Org, which hitched its cart to Ecuatoriana’s horse (the parent company behind Cacaoyere sourcing from Asociacion de Productores de Cacao Atacames – yeah, chocolate biz grows complicated), confirms that despite claims to the contrary on the packaging, this bar was manufactured in Quito. Future plans call for leaving that arrangement in favor of an all-Esmeraldas production by descendents of the very African maroons who escaped a shipwrecked Spanish slave galleon in 1533, & ran for the hills to their freedom in the Majagual Forest protected by the Mataje-Cayapas Reserve - 125,000 acres; home to 5,000 growers husbanding 450 groves amid some majestic biodiversity. Given how they assiduously ferment & dry this harvest (again, their technical skills here put other Ecuatoriana cacaotero growers to shame) only heightens the anticipation for what they can do with roasting & conching.
Hopefully, instead of the hollow sham concocted by the North American minders of Kallari, they’ll deliver a hallowed sample of the real deal – some soul cacáo – to their fellow gringo chocomanes so w’all sing in perfect harmony ‘We’d like to buy the world chok’lot / & keep it company...’
ING: cocoa mass, sugar, cacáo butter, soy lecithin
Reviewed Spring 2010
Sounds so Post-Irony but the more these in-country plays pump out the product where everything is done at the source from the places cacáo grows, stripped of all Euro refinements, the more those old skool classic bars appeal to the senses hungering for vanilla, sugar, lecithin, blended formulas & a real conche job that delivers core chocolate flavor.
Yet this does that without all the theatrical make-up kit, thanks to the cultivar (pick of the crop) & the cult of chocolate craft (minimalist approach gleaned thru the Textural composition).
Classic, on-point for the varietal and the origin, & yet one more reason, as if needed, why Esmeraldas is the best contemporary Ecuador - a true thoroughbred.
The high level constancy of it all is unreal... as in surreal –- full-throttle from start to finish –- no let-up or flagging flavors whatsoever. A balanced CBS (Cocoa Mass/Butter/Sugar ratio): ~4:5:4 goes a long way in achieving such, to rival Caoni’s 77% from the same spot. Check that, surpasses it.
Distibutor Bill Seal of GreatWilderness.Org, which hitched its cart to Ecuatoriana’s horse (the parent company behind Cacaoyere sourcing from Asociacion de Productores de Cacao Atacames – yeah, chocolate biz grows complicated), confirms that despite claims to the contrary on the packaging, this bar was manufactured in Quito. Future plans call for leaving that arrangement in favor of an all-Esmeraldas production by descendents of the very African maroons who escaped a shipwrecked Spanish slave galleon in 1533, & ran for the hills to their freedom in the Majagual Forest protected by the Mataje-Cayapas Reserve - 125,000 acres; home to 5,000 growers husbanding 450 groves amid some majestic biodiversity. Given how they assiduously ferment & dry this harvest (again, their technical skills here put other Ecuatoriana cacaotero growers to shame) only heightens the anticipation for what they can do with roasting & conching.
Hopefully, instead of the hollow sham concocted by the North American minders of Kallari, they’ll deliver a hallowed sample of the real deal – some soul cacáo – to their fellow gringo chocomanes so w’all sing in perfect harmony ‘We’d like to buy the world chok’lot / & keep it company...’
ING: cocoa mass, sugar, cacáo butter, soy lecithin
Reviewed Spring 2010